Rubio to Endorse Mandel in Ohio

Michael Warren

The Hill reports that Florida senator Marco Rubio will today be making his first Senate endorsement for Josh Mandel, a Republican challenging Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown:

Mandel told supporters in an email that he and Rubio would “crisscross the state” together on Monday and Tuesday, stopping in Cincinatti, Dayton and Columbus.

“We will visit with grassroots volunteers, blue-collar laborers, small-business owners, senior citizens and college students as we project our message of restoring fiscal sanity to Washington and economic freedom to America,” Mandel wrote.

Last summer Mandel, a Marine who served two tours in Iraq, received the endorsement of Jim DeMint, the influential conservative senator from South Carolina. Kate Havard wrote about Mandel in the August 29 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

Mandel looks maybe half of his 33 years, but he’s already accomplished more in his decade-long career in public service than many politicians have in a lifetime. He’s a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Iraq. A former city councilman in Lyndhurst, a suburb of Cleveland, he led the fight for the first property tax rollback in the county’s history. As a state legislator, he won landslide victories in a heavily liberal district. When he ran for state treasurer, he got more votes than Governor John Kasich.

Now he’s set on unseating incumbent U.S. senator and prominent liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown. A career politician, Brown was in the Ohio House of Representatives before Mandel was born. And after 35 years at the top, Mandel says, Brown is out of touch.

By contrast, if you were his constituent in northeast Ohio, Josh Mandel probably has sat in your living room—maybe more than once. Mandel estimates he’s knocked on more than 25,000 doors in various elections, and worn out multiple pairs of shoes doing it. He plans to knock on another 100,000 doors over the course of his Senate campaign. He’s going to have to buy some new shoes.